States / Minnesota

Chronic absence in Minnesota

Where things stand, what state rules ask of each role, and what is changing. For school and district leaders.

School year 2023-24

21%

of students were chronically absent³

U.S. rate: 22.6% (2024-25)²

Five-year trend

Minnesota, year by year

Minnesota chronic absence by school year
School year	Chronically absent
2017-18	14%
2018-19	14%
2021-22	30%
2022-23	25%
2023-24	21%

Dashed bars mark years the state did not publish a rate.

Where things stand

The numbers

In 2023-24, 21% of Minnesota students were chronically absent, according to state data in a July 2026 report to the Legislature; the report calls 2023-24 the most recent final year³.
Most chronically absent students were not far over the line: 84% of them had attendance rates between 71% and 90%, 11% between 50% and 71%, and 5% below 50%³.
The state also reports the flip side, consistent attendance (attending at least 90% of the time): 75.5% of students in 2023-24, up from 74.5% in 2022-23^4,5.
On AEI's compilation of state-reported data, Minnesota's rate was about 14% in 2018-19 and about 30% in 2021-22¹.
On the 2025 Minnesota Student Survey, 21% of students who did not feel they belonged at school said they missed school because they felt sad, hopeless, anxious, stressed or angry, against 6% of students who felt they belonged³.
Nationally, 22.6% of students were chronically absent in 2024-25; Minnesota's newest state figure, 21%, is for the earlier 2023-24 school year, so the years differ^2,3.

Requirements by role

What state rules ask of each role

Teachers

Schools must count a student as in attendance on each day the student receives supervision, instruction, or services from school staff during scheduled school hours. This does not change the district's separate attendance reporting for funding⁶.
A note from a physician or a licensed mental health professional stating that the child cannot attend school is a valid excuse. A district may state in its attendance policy that it may ask parents to verify the reason for an absence in writing⁶.
A school board must excuse a kindergarten child from part of a school day when the parent asks, and a parent may move a child from all-day, every-day kindergarten to a half-day program (if offered) or an alternate-day program without the child being truant⁶.

Counselors

A district or charter school may set up school attendance review boards. Members may include the superintendent or a designee, a principal and other school officials, parent representatives, community agencies serving truant students, a juvenile probation officer, school counselors and attendance officers, and law enforcement⁹.
A review board shall prepare an annual plan to promote interagency and community cooperation for students with attendance problems. When community services may resolve a truant student's attendance problems, the board shall refer the student or parent to them, may make an agreement with the family, and shall tell them that not complying will result in a referral to the county attorney^9,10.
Schools, community agencies, law enforcement, parent associations and other groups may cooperate on services for truant students and their families, such as assessing the underlying issues and referral to counseling, educational testing, psychological evaluations, tutoring, mentoring or mediation¹¹.
A student 16 or older who meets the statutory eligibility criteria and has been chronically truant may be referred to an area learning center, but only after consulting the principal, the center's director, the student and the parent, and only if the school administrator judges it to be in the student's best educational interest⁶.
A 17-year-old who wants to leave school, and the parent or guardian, must attend a meeting with school staff about the educational opportunities available, including alternatives, and sign a written election to withdraw⁶.

Attendance team

A child subject to compulsory instruction becomes a continuing truant after unexcused absences within a single school year on three days in elementary school, or of three or more class periods on three days in middle, junior high or high school. Schools may notify parents and address attendance problems before that point⁷.
When a child is first classified as a continuing truant, the school attendance officer or other designated school official shall notify the parent or guardian, by first-class mail or other reasonable means, that the child is truant and that the parent should tell the school if there is a valid excuse⁸.
That notice must also say that the parent is obligated to make the child attend and may be prosecuted for failing to; that it serves as the formal notice for that purpose; that alternative programs may be available; that the parent may meet school staff about solutions; that continued truancy may bring juvenile court proceedings and, with them, a possible suspension, restriction or delay of the child's driving privilege; and it recommends that a parent attend school with the child for one day⁸.
An attendance officer or other school official may refer a continuing truant to a school attendance review board, with written notice to the student and parent. If community services cannot resolve the problem, the family does not comply or cooperate, or the board decides on a direct referral (which a board may make only if it has established procedures and criteria for these referrals), the board may refer the matter to the county attorney if the county attorney has elected to take part in the truancy mediation program, or otherwise for legal action against the child or parent¹⁰.
A habitual truant is a child aged 12 to 17 in middle, junior high or high school who misses one or more class periods on seven school days in a school year without lawful excuse (a 17-year-old who has not lawfully withdrawn is also covered), or a child under 12 who misses seven school days without lawful excuse when clear and convincing evidence shows the absences are not the parent's failure. A habitual truant is a child in need of protection or services¹².

Principals & districts

The principal must issue and keep a record of attendance, under rules established by the school board⁶.
A parent may ask the district to excuse a child from attendance, applying to a truant officer or the school official the principal designates. The board may approve it when the child's physical or mental health prevents attendance, including illness or medical, dental, orthodontic or counseling appointments (also by telehealth), family emergencies, a death, serious illness or funeral in the immediate family, active military duty, a condition needing ongoing mental health treatment, or other reasons in the district's attendance policy⁶.
The board may also excuse a student who has already completed the state and district graduation standards, or for up to three hours a week of instruction by a Tribal spiritual or cultural advisor or at a school for religious instruction conducted and maintained by a church, an association of churches, or a Sunday school association incorporated under Minnesota law, “or any auxiliary thereof”; that instruction must be held away from public school buildings and not at public expense⁶.
No later than 15 school days after each term begins, a principal must report to the superintendent the names and last known addresses of students who were enrolled the previous term, are not enrolled now and were otherwise eligible, unless the school knows they enrolled elsewhere. The superintendent must immediately make the list available to the county agency whose purpose is to enroll students in school¹³.
When a student is dropped from the school's roll for unexcused absences exceeding 15 consecutive school days, the district must notify the local welfare agency, including the student's most recent contact information, and the school must also contact the family to encourage the student to reenroll; if the agency cannot reach the student or family, the district must notify the Department of Education¹³.

Recent changes

What changed lately

A 2025 law, signed June 14, 2025, rewrote the attendance-reporting rule: a district must count a student as in attendance on each day the student receives supervision, instruction, or services from school staff during scheduled school hours, and the principal must keep the attendance record^14,6.
The same 2025 law added duties for principals and districts: term-start lists of students who did not return, for the county agency that enrolls students, and notice to the local welfare agency when a student is dropped from the roll for unexcused absences exceeding 15 consecutive school days^14,13.
Those 2025 sections set no effective date of their own. The law carries appropriations, and under the state's default rule an act having appropriation items takes effect on the first day of July following its final enactment^14,15.
A 2024 law added telehealth appointments and instruction by a Tribal spiritual or cultural advisor to the reasons an absence may be excused, effective for the 2024-2025 school year and later¹⁶.
A 2024 law (signed May 18, 2024; effective the day after final enactment) set up a student attendance pilot in 12 named districts for the 2024-2025, 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 school years; districts must use pilot aid for sustainable strategies to reduce absenteeism, and reports to the Legislature are due by December 31, 2024; July 1, 2025; July 1, 2026; and September 1, 2027¹⁷.

Accountability

How the state holds schools to it

Minnesota's school accountability report, North Star, includes attendance data; its attendance measure tracks the share of students attending school at least 90% of the time and not chronically absent⁵.
The state's attendance data run about a year behind: the 2024 North Star report, released in August 2024, carried attendance for the 2022-23 school year^5,4.
The state's education department has built new attendance data dashboards with pilot funding, and a July 2026 report to the Legislature said they would soon be published³.
The same July 2026 report found that differences in how districts define and code absences limit how comparable statewide attendance data are; a pilot subcommittee is developing a state model policy to standardize coding³.

What’s working

Efforts with results

Northfield, one of the state's attendance pilot districts, reported that the share of chronically absent students at its high school fell from 23.5% in 2024-25 to 13.7% in 2025-26 (district-provided data in the July 2026 report to the Legislature)³.

Working on chronic absence in Minnesota?

Agenteach helps counselors, teachers, and attendance teams follow up with students who are missing school, and keeps a record of every step.

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Sources

American Enterprise Institute (Nat Malkus). From Attendance Crisis to Chronic Condition? Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2025, Table A3. State-Reported Chronic Absenteeism Data, by State, School Years 2017-25 (school years referred to by the spring year: 2017 = 2016-17, 2018 = 2017-18, 2019 = 2018-19, 2020 = 2019-20, 2021 = 2020-21, 2022 = 2021-22, 2023 = 2022-23, 2024 = 2023-24, 2025 = 2024-25; Minnesota's 2020, 2021 and 2025 cells are blank; rates rounded to whole percent) (opens in a new tab) (2026-06-30)
American Enterprise Institute (Nat Malkus). From Attendance Crisis to Chronic Condition? Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2025 (opens in a new tab) (2026-06-30)
Minnesota Student Attendance Pilot (report to the Legislature, reporting Minnesota Department of Education data). Minnesota Student Attendance Pilot Report: July 1, 2026 Report to the Legislature (lead district Minneapolis Public Schools with the Minnesota Department of Education; statewide figures are Department of Education data) — statewide figure, school year 2023-24 (opens in a new tab) (2026-07-01)
Post Bulletin (Rochester), reporting state data. In 2024-25, 65% of students in Rochester Public Schools consistently attended class (opens in a new tab) (2025-10-21)
Education Minnesota (press release reporting Minnesota Department of Education data). MCA scores steady, attendance improves in new state student data (opens in a new tab) (2024-08-29)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 120A.22, Compulsory instruction (Minnesota Statutes 2025), subd. 13(a) (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 260A.02, subd. 3, Continuing truant (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 260A.03, Notice to parent or guardian when child is a continuing truant (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 260A.05, School attendance review boards (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 260A.06, Referral of truant students to school attendance review board (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 260A.04, Community-based truancy projects and service centers (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 260C.007, Definitions (juvenile protection), subd. 19, Habitual truant (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 120A.24, subd. 4, Reports to the state or county (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Laws of Minnesota 2025, First Special Session, chapter 10 (education) (opens in a new tab) (2025-06-14)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minn. Stat. § 645.02, Effective date and time of laws (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Laws of Minnesota 2024, chapter 109, article 8, section 1 (amending § 120A.22, subd. 12; new text shown as 'new text begin ... new text end') (opens in a new tab) (2024-05-17)
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Laws of Minnesota 2024, chapter 115, section 20, Student attendance pilot program (opens in a new tab) (2024-05-18)